May in Matraia

I had long harboured a desire to rent a rustic villa somewhere in Tuscany and to cultivate a memorable time in that location, rather than simply spend yet another random 'holiday' week in a different place. The villa needed to match my expectations of rural Tuscany and not be an overly lavish, 'modern-convenience' equipped facility that I could just as easily experience within driving distance of my home in Melbourne, Australia.

So, having decided that four weeks should do the trick, I set about searching the internet for a Tuscan villa to meet my expectations. After some months troweling properties, I settled on Podere Centone in Matraia, just outside of Lucca - ironically this was the fourth villa that I researched and I kept gravitating back to this seven hundred year old, twelve bed, ex-convent. A little odd perhaps, but having selected the villa and committed to myself that this vision was definitely going to happen, I then set about the task of potentially filling it with family and friends who would turn it into a cherished memory!

I compiled a missive and emailed it to people that my wife, Jennifer, and/or I had met over the years and then started compiling a spreadsheet to try to control possible interest and numbers present at any one time. Albeit a bit banal to compile a spreadsheet, what else would one expect from an engineer? The email rules were that the accommodation was free to visitors and that they just needed to cover their own travelling and living expenses along the way - airline ticket confirmation locked their beds into the spreadsheet, all the while providing me with the challenging joy of manipulating people and beds in the unseen and unfamiliar environment of an ex-convent!

My daughter, Ellen, gave me a Tuscan cookbook for Christmas 2011, so once the list began firming up with committed invitees, I selected a recipe from that book for each individual to practice and then, if agreeable, to cook sometime during their stay in Tuscany. I specifically chose each recipe for each individual based upon their particular idiosyncrasies, personalities and what they meant to me - what a fantastic concept that turned out to be. Whether people traveled off each day to do their own thing in Cinque Terre, Florence, Pisa, Lucca or some other Tuscan jewel, or whether they just lounged by the pool or visited the local winery in the valley below, each day there was always a self-elected "chef de jour" who was ably assisted by an ever burgeoning group of alcohol drinking kitchen hands from 1600 hours onwards until it culminated into a veritable feast each evening around 2030 hours. The meals were a success on each and every occasion and the nights were spent with incredible amounts of raucous laughter incited by copious amounts of wine, embellished stories and song, even though these festivities were occasionally curtailed by the affectionately named "Fun Police"!

From Carlo the incredibly interesting dude who owned the villa and who had many a fascinating tale to tell, to Cristina who hosted numerous long lunches at the Colle Verde vineyard below us, to the village folk of Matraia, to "Otto" the truck toting fruit and vegetable vendor that stopped at the end of the driveway and sold incredibly good valued fresh market produce, to the beautiful walled city of Lucca itself, to the spectacular views across the valley from the balcony of Podere Centone, to the expressions on the faces of our friends as they came and went, all thirty one of them over the month, this was definitely one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.
For a group of people, many of whom were unknown to each other prior to being foisted together in a old convent in the middle of a foreign country, the whole four weeks were an absolute treat and something that will live in our memories forever.
There were many a funny story to be told over the journey, but each is funniest to those directly involved and is best cherished in their own minds and encapsulated in the "I guess you had to be there" folder ..... one we all know and understand.